Friday, November 13, 2009

Here's a new site worth paying attention to: NYCRuns.com. My friend Steve is starting up this site for runners in the New York area. It includes spaces for running groups, a local race calendar, running blogs and a running partner finder. I think it's a really cool idea. The New York running community is huge and goes way beyond just the NY Road Runners Club. There is definitely a need for a site to pull it all together.

It went live in the last few months so it's still in its infancy. If you are a runner in the New York area I really encourage you to check it out. You can connect through your Facebook profile which makes it easy to set up. Or you can look at the content without logging in. If you post ideas to a forum, they will be noted and you could have a real impact on getting the site going.

They've already posted a nice article on Lady Southpaw. If you have any running article ideas I'm sure Steve would love to know about it. Also, bloggers your contributions could have significant pull!

Sunday, November 1, 2009

This morning I am going to go cheer on the runners of the New York Marathon. Hopefully the weather will clear up a bit and it will be a great race for everyone involved. I am looking forward to running it myself next year. Before I go I have a couple things I need to post about:

The past month I've working with some artists through twitter and ReverbNation. It was spearheaded by Jonathan Jones of Linwood Studios. My main contribution was the vocals. Steve Morton was also a key contributer of some eclectic sounds. The intention was to create something entirely collaborative online with feedback from listeners every step of the way, which was immensely valuable. We went through several drafts and I am very excited about the result. What began as an instrumental sketch about flight became a story about a Lara Croft-like flight attendant (undercover spy?) foiling a terrorist plot mid-air.

The project is called Shock Pilot and the first song is called "Smokin' Tasers." Find more information about it here:

There is talk about offering a contest for people interested in making a youtube video for it. Contact me for more details.

The other big news I am very excited to announce that my song "Why I Run" was included in this month's JogTunes Indie Podcast! Dr. Bob Marcus guides runners through a 60 minute work out featuring a vast array of unsigned and unknown artists, explaining the different tempos for each song along the way. This podcast was indispensable to me when I started researching the idea running music. I used it to feel out the different tempos. I remember being most comfortable in the 150s and 160s. As soon as the pace climbed into 170 or 180 bpm I wasn't able to keep up. Now here I am nearly two years later touting the benefits of 180 bpm, which proves that cadence is definitely something you can control when you know how. The thing I eventually learned was that the speed of your leg turnover doesn't determine your running speed. If you make your stride smaller you don't have to run faster at the higher tempos. The podcast is a good exercise for trying different stride lengths and cadences as well as discovering unknown artists.

A big thanks to Dr. Bob! He is so nice. I am really happy to have a song in the podcast and to be on the website. It's the fulfillment of something I was dreaming about a year ago. If you have not checked it out already, definitely subscribe to this podcast. The website is also a useful resource for finding good running music.

MP3 player

LADY SOUTHPAW MUSIC

Links to Lady Southpaw Online

Lady Southpaw is the indendent music project/alter ego of a Brooklyn based singer-songwriter who creates music inspired by and for the purpose of running training. The tempo encourages the ideal 180 step per minute efficient running cadence. The Songs for Running EP can be downloaded from iTunes or Amazon and easily added to running playlists. Recently she has collaborated with musicians at Hellasound.com to create full workouts with warm-up, intervals, cool-down and coaching. The sound is female vocal and guitar driven indie rock with some electronic elements. For more info go to www.LadySouthpaw.com

About Me

The "Running Rocks" blog chronicles the thought behind writing songs for running. This includes background on the songs, race/training reports, and research on running and music. For more info visit: www.LadySouthpaw.com